Shiba Inu (SHIB) has launched its "SOU: Shib Owes You" recovery system — a live, on-chain claims framework built on Ethereum (ETH) that converts compensation owed to users affected by last year's Shibarium bridge exploit into transferable NFTs with visible balances, payout mechanics and secondary-market trading options.
What Happened: SOU Claims Go Live
The system, announced via X by the official Shiba Inu account, allows affected users to claim NFTs at shib.io/sou. "SOU is live," the post read, describing it as "an onchain NFT built as a good-faith effort to support impacted users with payouts, donations, and occasional rewards."
The concept was first outlined in a Dec. 29, 2025, letter by Shibarium developer Kaal Dhairya, who described it as a verifiable record of "exactly what the ecosystem owes" each affected user. At the time, Dhairya stressed it was "not live yet" and warned users to "beware of scammers."
Under the system, each claim carries two balances: "Original Principal," an immutable record of a user's losses, and "Current Principal," which decreases as payouts are distributed.
The project's documentation draws a distinction between "Payout," which reduces principal as compensation, and "Reward," which is additive and does not change the owed balance.
Claims can be merged, split, transferred between wallets or sold on marketplaces — effectively creating a secondary market in discounted recovery claims.
A funding model routes ecosystem revenues and community donations into a common pool, with donations applied proportionally across affected claims.
The system follows the September 2025 Shibarium bridge incident, in which Shib's own security update said "unauthorized validator signing power" was used to push a malicious exit through the PoS bridge, enabling withdrawals of multiple assets.
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Why It Matters: On-Chain Accountability
The SOU framework replaces what would typically be a private, off-chain compensation process with a publicly auditable ledger enforced by smart contracts. "SOU (Shib Owes You) is more than just a name; it is a commitment," the project's documentation states, describing it as the ecosystem's "dedication to making users whole through a transparent, audited, and on-chain recovery system."
The system also includes real-time activity notifications that alert the community whenever a donation is received or a payout distributed.
By making claims tradable, the project offers a liquidity option for users who do not want to wait for recovery flows to complete — a design that could set a precedent for how crypto projects handle post-exploit compensation.
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